


Therapy with Right Hand Man

by The_Writing_Fandom_Menace



Category: Henry Stickmin Series (Video Games)
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Burt just wanted a sandwich, Even Mr. Macbeth is here, Everyone Needs A Hug, Fluff and Humor, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, It's just Right Hand Man absorbing everyone's complaining, Minor Reginald Copperbottom/Right Hand Man, Rants, Sort Of, Therapy, and Sven is a rambling boi, and he's mad, because why not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-20 21:01:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30010890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Writing_Fandom_Menace/pseuds/The_Writing_Fandom_Menace
Summary: When Right Hand Man had said he’d be in the Orion Lounge if anyone wanted to talk, he wasn’t expecting… this.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 22





	Therapy with Right Hand Man

When Right Hand Man had said he’d be in the Orion Lounge if anyone wanted to talk, he wasn’t expecting… this.

He figured that if anyone wanted to get a better understanding of an upcoming heist, talking to him one-on-one would help improve their performance on missions. After all, some people in the clan just needed things explained differently. He also hoped that members would feel comfortable coming to him and proposing their own ideas and thoughts for possible heists- Reginald wasn’t the only one with good ideas. And since Reginald had a lot of other things to worry about, RHM figured he’d lessen his workload by listening to the clan and reporting back to him. 

But that was not at all how the clan had taken his announcement- at least, that wasn’t how  _ Sven _ had taken it. Right Hand Man has been listening to the blond-haired Toppat rant on and on for the past 40 minutes like this was some therapy session instead of the small-scale meeting it was supposed to be. Sven was currently pacing back and forth and waving his hands around as he spoke, almost forgetting that he was talking to the  _ second in command  _ and letting the formal attitude he usually carried himself with completely slip away. 

“He was all, “I don’t speak Swedish.” So I told him, “I AM SPEAKING  _ ENGLISH _ , YOU PRICK! WHY DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND ME?!” And then...THEN he finally listened to me!!! Is my accent really that thick?”

“No, Sven, it ain’t that hard to understand.” Right sighed, getting to talk for the first time since Sven started to speak. 

“YOU speak in an accent!! Why does no one make fun of you?!” Sven realized what he’d just asked and quickly added, “do not answer that.”    
  
Right would have chuckled at this, but he wasn’t sure that was the right move when dealing with the infuriated Swede. “It’s really more of a dialect.” RHM said as he leaned back in the booth he was sitting in and stared up at the ceiling. “Is that all ya had ta say?” 

“No, actually!” Sven started pacing again. “You know, I think that I’m underappreciated!” 

Right exhaled slowly and closed his eyes. “Do ya now.” 

“Yes! I do think so! I do a ton of work around here and no one ever thanks me for it! They even go as far as to not take me seriously!” 

Right Hand Man shouldn’t have allowed this to go on for so long. He had one of the highest positions of authority in the clan, second only to Reginald, so he should have been able to stop Sven from going off on an angry tirade with a simple sentence. He should have been able to interrupt at any time during this speech, but when Sven started talking he found it pretty hard to get a word in edgewise. 

Finally, Sven finished his rant and took a couple quick breaths. “Okay. I am done. Sorry about that. Thank you for listening.”

“It’s fine, Sven.” in all honesty, RHM had tuned out most of what Sven had said, but if he felt better after getting all that off of his chest then Right decided to just let Sven believe he’d been listening to him.

Sven left the room with another “thank you, Sir” and then shut the door. Right stroked his mustache and sighed. Sitting through all of that was draining. Right wondered if he should leave the Orion Lounge and go back to talking to people tomorrow, but before he could get up the door opened again, and a Toppat with burnt-orange headphones stepped into the room. 

“Hi, Sir.”

“‘Ello, Burt. What brings you ‘ere?”

Burt shrugged. “Well, Sven said you were offering to listen to people so I thought I’d… um.”

_ Sven was going to be the end of him.  _ Burt noticed the grimace on RHM’s face and started to back up towards the door. “Ah… nevermind, Sir, this was a bad idea, sorry to bother you-”

“No, sit down. I’ll listen.”  _ Where did that come from? _

Right had already spent almost an hour listening to Sven ramble on and on, and now he was offering to listen to even  _ more  _ rambling? Perhaps he’d said that because he felt pity for Burt. He seemed like the kind of guy to bottle things up, maybe talking would do him good. Perhaps he'd said that because he was genuinely curious about what someone like Burt, who almost never showed any interest in conversation and sometimes went out of his way to avoid it, would possibly have to talk about. Whatever the reason, it had slipped out of his mouth, and now Burt was hesitantly taking a seat across from him in the booth. 

“Well.” Burt folded his hands on the table and stared at them, refusing to make eye contact. “I guess I’m kinda angry.” He glanced up at RHM, almost asking for a response to this. Right, not knowing if he should lighten the tense atmosphere with a sarcastic quip or take this seriously, just gave Burt a nod prompting him to continue. 

“You see, the Chief told me not to eat a sandwich because he was saving it for himself. But I was super hungry so I ate it. He didn’t even yell at me, he just looked at me and then made a new sandwich for himself.” Burt paused and glanced at Right again. “I would feel better if he yelled at me, you know.” 

How exactly was he supposed to respond to something like this? Of course Reginald hadn’t yelled at Burt for eating his sandwich. He’d probably been too tired to even care, and besides, he just wasn’t the type to yell at people- that was Right’s job. 

Thankfully, Burt seemed to understand his loss for words. “That’s all I wanted to talk about for now.” he said, standing up. “Thanks for listening, though, that’s… that’s cool of you.” he walked out of the room with a respectful nod and shut the door behind him. 

_ Huh. _

Apparently, word had spread that the second-in-command was offering to be everyone’s emotional punching bag, because barely a minute later Carol Cross stepped into the room wanting to unload all of her problems, and at this point Right really had no choice but to let her do so. A lot of it was complaining that half the clan was full of idiots who didn’t take their job seriously enough.

Next was Mr. MacBeth, whining about how he had to do everything on missions because the rest of his team was too soft and let people get past them too easily. Right couldn’t disagree with him there, although that didn’t make it any less irritating to have to listen as Mr. MacBeth pouted about it for thirty minutes. 

Then Thomas Chestershire came in with an itemized list of ways Reginald could do better as leader of the clan, which, of course, didn’t improve Right’s mood at all, even if most of the complaints weren’t directed at him. 

By the time Geoffrey walked into the room, Right was just about done. So after listening to a rant about how the orbital station halls were poorly lit (they weren’t, Geoffrey’s just half blind) and how people always fake cough whenever he smokes his pipe (the coughing wasn’t fake), Right went to walk out the door, only to find a small line of people waiting outside. 

_ What had he gotten himself into? _

He’d had about enough of this. It was about time he reminded everyone that he was the Right Hand Man, not everyone’s therapist. He shooed everyone away from the door, stomping past the still-growing line and to his room. 

Right pushed open the door and trudged over to his bed, where Reginald was already sitting, reading a book. Without even bothering to take his top hat off, he flopped face-first onto the mattress, ready to fall asleep in that position. Of course, Reginald wouldn’t allow that. He put his book down, inched a little closer to his Right Hand Man, and rubbed his back. “What happened?”

_ What a question. _ A lot had happened, and Right had willingly soaked it all up and was completely drained from it. Had he been told anything important that Reginald should know about? If he had, he was too exhausted to remember, and he was  _ definitely _ too exhausted to explain it. So his mumbled response to Reginald’s question was, 

“You shoulda yelled at Burt for eating your sandwich.” 


End file.
